To think being angry works

[sallover]

I have two kids (2 and 5.) I’ve read the books and what you’re supposed to do to deal with poor behaviour or habits and I was doing it.

And it wasn’t effective in the slightest.

So for instance my five year old pees all over the place when he goes to the toilet. For well over a year now I’ve been consistent and made him go back and clean it. It’s been hugely disruptive because he often argues and refuses so then deal with that but calmly made him clean it.

And then I lost it with him at the start of the holiday. I properly yelled at him for quite a while and made him cry; told him it was disgusting, dirty and unpleasant for others. And he hasnt done it since.

We had it again this morning where he was getting frustrated with a toy. At first I sympathised and helped but he just kept roaring and screaming. So I told him he could either stop and play calmly or I’d remove it because it was unpleasant for everyone else to listen to screaming.

No doubt someone will ask why I posted on AIBU because I don’t think I’m being unreasonable and it isn’t quite as simple as that. I don’t want to be a horrible shouty mum they are scared of. Equally though I don’t want them running rings round me and it did feel like they were tbh. (The stern / firm voice never worked either before anyone suggests that.)

How do you think it feels to a small child to have a much larger person standing over them shouting and yelling?

I'm sure it feels upsetting in the moment. How do you think it feels to be the wife or partner who sits or steps in a puddle of their partners piss every time she goes to the loo, or who has to clean his piss off her own small children, because he's never been stopped from doing it, or made to feel any responsibility for cleaning up his own mess? Also pretty upsetting, but not a one off.

If OP went straight to yelling you might have a point. But if he didn't feel badly enough to do stop doing it the first 500 times she asked him nicely, your assumption that at some point he will magically change if she just keeps trying - until when? He's 10? 15? 25, is unrealistic.

How old is this child?

Several people have mentioned repeatedly asking
Nope its telling and then doing
I have zero idea why people repeatedly ask
Fuck that you are the parent!

He smacked him for ten minutes? Jesus, that’s pretty bad though.

But it is shameful to keep peeing everywhere and expecting someone else to clean it up. Why shouldn’t he be made to feel that? It’s a legitimate feeling. Are we really proposing that human beings should not feel perfectly legitimate feelings anymore?

Two. Three in August.

It is a tough age. Lots of big feelings. I thought I’d skipped the ‘attack your mother’ stage but it seems not.

No, you’ll just leave society to deal with it.

Oh ok yep

I thought it was a much older child
Yep toys away. Do NOT hurt me said very firmly
Early night !

Ha ha ha ok.

I agree OP, and I also hate it. For me shouting is absolutely the last resort and I do it very rarely. Ideally I'd like to stop completely unless someone is in imminent danger. However what's annoying is how effective it is. I feel I spend SO much time and energy trying to stay calm (I have a bad temper, it's a real effort for me to stay calm but it's the way I want to parent/be in general so I do it), take breaths, communicate etc when it feels like if I go on a rant it works instantly.

Annoyingly it also is the case with DH. I can ask a few times nicely with no results, follow it up with a chat, then explain that a lack of change is frustrating me, however if it reaches the stage where we end up sitting down to have a chat because I am livid or I finally lose my temper, that's when the message gets through. It's infuriating. If learned behaviour is so effective then what I am learning is that shouting works. Which is the last behaviour I want to see being effective!!

One phrase which does often save my sanity is 'this is the last time I'm going to ask calmly' or 'if I have to ask again I am going to lose my temper'. These days that actually is often as effective as shouting. It also makes me feel better if the behaviour continues and I do end up raising my voice because they had a final warning.

Otherwise I am sure to model making amends and how to repair a relationship after someone has lost their temper.

It really is rare that I do it these days, I wish it was never. It's not nice to be flooded with cortisol and feeling angry. I wish everyone would respect the first kind ask rather than continuously pushing boundaries. But there it is.

I try not to shout but theres only so many times one can say 'put your shoes on, dc, so we can go' before you start to get irritated!

Kids need to know that we are human and that other humans aren't going to tolerate repeating themselves 20 times a day

I think it works in the short term but seriously screaming and shouting does not work for childrens MH in the long term
They stop because you have scared them

@BlueberrySummerCloud also honestly I have a shouty mother and eventually i learned to roll my eyes and ignore her (which did not help). So that also motivates me to avoid it long term/99% of the time.

Not sure I'm scaring DH though tbh.

I think you need a middle ground with varied communication styles to match the seriousness of what’s going on. I’m not sure that anger is particularly good, it’s normally due to a loss of control and over the top. If used too much it even stops being effective. But if it’s very occasional and for an appropriate issue, I don’t think it’s damaging or abusive. I think the softly, softly approach is harmful to young children. It doesn’t really tell them the true state of things. Attitude, tone of voice, body language is very important in communication. If you’re telling them no but everything else is saying “I don’t mean it” they aren’t going to hear the no. Being firm tends about things that are important tends to work best in my experience.

Had to name change for this as didn’t want my real life friends seeing my post! Of course being angry works! I 100% believe this and seeing the state of this country with teens running riot with beating people up and other anti social behaviour it’s proof gentle parenting does not work, The reason why I name changed - I have seen with my younger sister and my friends that trying to be friends with your child does not work. I hate seeing her trying to reason with them etc, it does not work, obviously beating them up and starving them does not work either but kids need to have a kind of “fear” of their parents. Before people rush in to shout me down listen to this;

Try and think of work - the jobs I’ve had a stern manager I would never have been late or taken any kind of piss and I was “scared” of them in a sense. But jobs where the manager was a soft touch I wasn’t worried about occasionally being late or asking for time off etc, so I think in the same way kids need to have a figure in their lives either a mother or a father who will call them out in bad behaviour and they need to be a little worried about the reaction from parent.

I definitely didn’t step out of line as I knew my parents would be upset with me. I got good grades and behaved and never got involved in bad behaviour that other kids with less strict parents were taking part in, I’m successful in my career and have a good relationship either way my parents who are more like my friends now but growing up I had strict parents

I don’t want them to be scared of me but I was scared of them. Or rather, things were out of control.

Logic says that you are correct but logic doesn’t dictate with young children, I’ve learned.

Those teenagers likely had zero parenting nit GP

What you are talking about is not fear , unless you prefer to scream at or whip your kids
Its lack of respect/ poor boundaries

I am extremely firm and they have grown up to be nice pleasant respectful adults, shouting and fear doesnt create that.
It either creates bullies/ tearaways with zero respect or fearful people pleasers

Ops Dc are 2 and 5 -she shouting at a 2 and 5 year old not older kids

Im leaving this thread now
@sallover I would suggest you speak to your HV for some advice

Not gentle parent here mine are adults and it wasnt a thing i sometimes lost my temper obviously they were shouted at. Screaming and shaming a 5 year old for toileting accidents is a horrible thing to do. Have you checked he is managing and his foreskin isn't too tight that often causes excess spray. Perhaps he cant actually help it. I'm surprised at how many people seem to think this is acceptable but confirms why I see so many teenagers in therapy!

Why? But you are leaving the thread so I shall never know!

I do think there are various extremes but only a fool would keep doggedly insisting something works when they/I can see it isn’t having the slightest impact whatsoever.

He wasn’t having toileting ‘accidents.’ He was pissing all over the floor because he wasn’t bothering to aim into the toilet. As you know. But of course it makes me sound so much worse and so much more evil to say I was ‘shaming him for toilet accidents’, doesn’t it?

I know it’s bad. But shouting didn’t work with my brother nor firm voices.

Millions of parents have perfectly enjoyable, normal lives without shouting.

Shouting is a sign a parent is struggling and hasn't got a grip earlier in the process.

(The exception is genuine danger)

Not read the whole thread but I think of parenting like a pyramid, so at the bottom,
level 1 there's all the asking nicely and pandering/helping, then once you're mildly irritated you move to
level 2 which is stern voice and simple choices, then
level 3 is used for when the fussing has to finish now which is ultimatums and physically intervening. The final stage
level 4 is the shouting and all the other embarrassing stuff and that should happen as little as possible but depending on your child you might have to pull it out every so often.

I've seen posts on here from people who said they used to start counting when their children weren't listening, and the children always jumped into action and they had never had to think about what to do when they got to five. But we aren't all blessed with that situation!

The only thing I would caveat is that all the levels are underpinned by communication, so if you're stuck in a rut of shouting or the same issues over and over, have a think one evening, then have a chat with the child at a good time, and get them to work with you.

Perhaps they do. But we don’t know, do we? We only really know what we do. Even people we’re very close with may not disclose everything.

In my case, I don’t feel like shouting means I’m struggling, it’s largely the opposite. I do actually have something I know will work and be effective. It isn’t pleasant for anyone but knowing I can use it has been a huge relief; it’s taken the stress out of the days to a large extent.

I don't know anyone in real life that has never shouted at their child. I do know some who have really beaten themselves up afterwards because they believe that it's abusive but they have still done it because they are human.